"Twenty arrests by the age of 20. Come on what else did they need to know?"

Jadiel Velesquez, 4, suffered brain damage after his father beat him when he was four months old.

NEWARK —State child welfare workers could have spared Jadiel Velesquez from a savage beating when he was four months old if they had picked up on signs that his father was too dangerous to be caring for an infant, the boy’s lawyer told an Essex County jury today.

Jadiel’s attorney, David Mazie, wrapped up his case against the state Division of Youth and Family Services by ticking off a list of reasons why caseworkers should have stepped in and removed the boy from his father’s custody before it was too late.

Joshua Velesquez, 26, had a history of violent criminal behavior that included tossing a dog off a balcony and battering his girlfriends, Mazie told jurors during closing arguments in the trial stemming from the multimillion-dollar lawsuit Jadiel’s grandmother filed against DYFS in 2010.

“Twenty arrests by the age of 20,” Mazie said. “Come on, what else did they need to know?”

Jadiel, now 4, was left blind and permanently brain damaged by the July 16, 2009 beating in Jersey City and is unable to function on his own. He was wheeled into the courtroom last week as jurors were told that he will need around-the-clock care for the rest of his life.

His father is serving a six-year prison term for aggravated assault.

The jury of four men and four women will begin deliberating the case tomorrow in Essex County Superior Court. The family’s lawyers are seeking some $64 million to cover the boy’s medical expenses for the rest of his life.

DYFS' attorney, John North, urged jurors not to consider the case “in hindsight” but from the perspective of case workers trying to use caution before wielding the “extraordinary power” of removing a child from his parents’ home.

“It’s not such a clear-cut call,” North said. “It’s the type of judgment that can always be second-guessed.”

For instance, child welfare workers did not find out until after the attack on Jadiel that his father had a lengthy arrest record in Florida, North said. A check of criminal records in New Jersey did not turn up any arrests, North said.

“I’m not saying that suddenly that makes him a model citizen but it had been three years,” North said.

On May 28, 2009, Jadiel was taken to the emergency room at Newark Beth Israel after his grandmother, Neomi Escobar, called a state hotline to say she suspected that his father had abused him. The boy had bruises on his cheeks and blood in his eyes, according to testimony. Doctors released him to his parents with a finding of suspected abuse, the boy’s lawyers claim.

Several weeks later, Escobar found a crack pipe in the boy’s diaper bag while she was babysitting the child for her daughter, Vanessa Merchan.